The bureau was unassailable.
She left it, and paused to trim the wick of the candle before she tried
the buhl cabinet next.
At the moment when she raised her hand to the candle, she heard the
stillness of the Banqueting-Hall shudder with the terror of a sound--a
sound faint and momentary, like the distant rushing of the wind.
The sliding door in the drawing-room had moved.
Which way had it moved? Had an unknown hand pushed it back in its socket
further than she had pushed it, or pulled it to again, and closed it?
The horror of being shut out all night, by some undiscoverable agency,
from the life of the house, was stronger in her than the horror of
looking across the Banqueting-Hall. She made desperately for the door of
the room.
It had fallen to silently after her when she had come in, but it was not
closed. She pulled it open, and looked.
The sight that met her eyes rooted her, panic-stricken, to the spot.
Close to the first of the row of windows, counting from the
drawing-room, and full in the gleam of it, she saw a solitary figure. It
stood motionless, rising out of the furthest strip of moonlight on the
floor. As she looked, it suddenly disappeared.
Pages:
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097